This was an easy one for me. I need access. This little phrase means several things.

Maybe you thought it was the child saying “I need a phone because I need access”. Actually, when I typed the phrase it meant “I need access to your phone.” Those are the rules. Like Donna talked about, phones need to come with rules. Access is an important one. As the adult, it is our responsibility to monitor what happens with the phone. We need access to it. Social media on smart phones and texting on other phones can be exciting and dangerous at the same time. We need to monitor and have access. It’s not really a negotiable issue. Having a phone is a big responsibility and a privilege. Parental access to it is a must.

What are some negotiable and non-negotiable rules with your kids’ cell phones? Share them with us.

Everyone is going, all the kids sneak candy into the theater and no one else has to be home by 11 p.m. When kids are facing peer pressure, how should parents respond? Kids of all ages may find peer pressure hard to resist. Often kids give in to peer pressure because they want to be liked; they want to have friends and be part of a group. Kids may be afraid that others will make fun of them if they are different or don’t go along with what’s being said or done. Sometimes kids give in to peer pressure because they want to try This month we will take a close look at the positive and negative aspects of peer pressure. We will offer ideas on how parents can help their children maintain friends while learning how to resist pressure and also standing up for what they believe is right.Blo

I want you to know that not everyone is going to like you.I want you to know that you can fail and I will still love you.I want you to know that I am not perfect.I want you to know…

I find myself thinking and saying this phrase a lot. I have two teens and one nine year old that thinks she is a teen. There is so much I want them to know but so much that I don’t always say out loud. Yes, I want them to know, but I also know that sometimes they will ‘hear’ it louder from someone else. What resources can I share with them so they will find the answers I want them to know?

Below are some of the resources I have share with my teens so far. And yes, it was via text, email, Twitter or Facebook. I’ll use any means I can to share the information I want them to know.

If you look up Children and Chores at www.extension.org you will find several different articles on children helping with household chores. And guess what? They can start right now helping with all kinds of things. Even toddlers LOVE helping to put socks in the basket or towels in the drawer.

Allowing children to help around the house gives them hands on experiences for learning as well as a feeling of independence and responsibility.

It is important to share with the child how you want the task done, let the child do it and then DON’T re-do when they are done. Did you catch that? It’s OK that there is a wrinkle in the blanket or the fork is upside down. Let them know how proud you are of the work they did and keep modeling the way you would like it done eventually. Remember, you probably had a wrinkle in your bed at that age as well.

What are some chores that you have your children helping with? Share with us!

Researchers are in agreement that mothers and fathers interact differently with their children (Parke, 1995).

Fathers spend proportionately more time playing with their children, while mothers spend a greater proportion of their total time with their children in caretaking activities (Lamb, 1986).

Because mothers spend a greater amount of time overall with their children, they may actually spend more time playing with them than do fathers, yet caretaking is still what best characterizes their time, while play best characterizes the fathers’ overall time with their children. Fathers and mothers also play differently with their children, with fathers much more likely to be rough and tumble (Parke, 1995; Hetherington and Parke, 1993).

Whew!! I’m not less fun! I just playdifferentthan fathers do! I would love to hear how you play and have fun. Whether you are a mother or a father, spending time having fun and playing is so important. Share ideas here!

So I have a confession. I usually consider myself pretty tech savvy. This week however, I learned something that has fascinated me about the internet. Did you know that if you google any topic and then use the :edu you will pull up more resources with educational credibility? It might look like this: fathering site:edu

I HAD NO IDEA!!!!

So I did that for our monthly topic on Fathers. AND WOW! I found ‘real’ information from credible and research based resources.

Fathers are different from mothers, but offer love, guidance and support in their own unique way. During June, we’ll talk about the role of fathers and what research has to say about this important role.

National studies show that an overwhelming majority of Americans agree that fathers play an important and irreplaceable role in the lives of children. Seven out of 10people in one study agreed that the physical absence of fathers from the home is the most significant social problem facing America.

As Donna and the podcast suggested, anger is natural for children. There are countless issues that may cause a child to feel angry: not getting their way, frustration over things that are hard, learning difficulties, family problems, or friendship issues.

Often times we want to tell our children that they should not be angry. Their anger sometimes seems irrational and unjustified to us as parents. In reality, the emotion of anger is not the problem; it is how they handle that anger.

So allow your child to feel angry. We all know how hard it is to try to change your emotions. Help your child identify their feeling as anger. Saying and labeling the emotion like this may be helpful, “You are angry because I won’t let you eat candy before supper” or “I can tell that when you don’t make the circle perfect it makes you frustrated”.

Now that they can recognize their anger, they can learn how to address it. There are some great strategies and tips to try when helping your child learn to handle their anger in the article below:

Yep, we all get mad! Infants, toddlers, elementary kids, middle schoolers, high schoolers, college kids, young adults, the middle aged and the aging. We ALL get MAD! So if we all get mad then why sometimes do we let others people anger confound and confuse us so much?

Understanding how my own emotions impact my behavior was a huge part of me being able to understand why my children get angry and how they show it in their behaviors. I realized that my emotions created my behaviors and my children were reacting to those behaviors. Think of it like a circle – Behavior, Reaction, Behavior, Reaction and so on and so on. As the adult we have to figure out how to make the behaviors and reactions less intense and emotion filled. Easier said than done right? That’s where our blog begins. Join us and help us start the discussion.

In this month’s podcast we learned that the research around corporal punishment is not a black and white issue. Then through the blogs several of you raised different perspectives. Ultimately it comes down to what is really a simple question – “How should I respond when my kid is misbehaving?”

Because this is such a big concern for parents, we decided to devote the spring webinar to the topic. Mark your calendar for March 14 from 8:00-9:00 pm. Plan to join us as we:

Discuss three common ways parents use guidance and discipline with their children

Talk about why children misbehave

Figure out the difference between punishment and positive discipline

Explore discipline teaching tools appropriate for different ages and temperaments

Watch for further details about the free webinar here on the Science of Parenting site.

You are at the grocery store and just about done with your shopping. It’s been a pretty pleasant trip, but then you round the last aisle. Your child sprints toward the Fruity Pebbles. “Please please please”. You respond, “No, we aren’t going to get those this time”. And it begins: the kicking feet, flailing arms, and high-pitched screaming. You are the victim of another grocery store tantrum via Fruity Pebbles or Death.

When it happens to you as the parent, it makes you feel embarrassed, and (let’s be real) frustrated with your child. You just wanted a quick simple trip to the store, and now you have a screaming child drawing a lot of unwanted attention to you.

So how do we address the problem of our screaming child? Some of us may want to spank or threaten. Some of us may want give in to the child’s request in order to stop the fit. Some of us may yell back. Some of us may simply walk away.

According to researchers at Zero to Three, the keyto this scenario is staying calm rather than losing it. Don’t let your anger get the best of you. Also, make sure to validate your child’s feelings. They really do feel frustrated! There are some great tips and techniques to try in the article below:

“Don’t talk to me that way.” “Quit slamming the door.” Isn’t it amazing how the first words that often come out of a parent’s mouth is a description of what our kids are doing wrong. Then we threaten and soon we’re in the middle of an argument. Taken too far, we may resort to harsh punishment like a slap to the face or a spanking. Later when we cool down, we may realize that nothing was learned and the same problem is apt to happen again and again.

This is where discipline enters the picture. When we want to change behavior, we need to do more than describe what kids are doing wrong. We have to name specifically what we want them to do. Kids do better when we use positives. Here are three simple examples.

Some parents find they can improve problems with their kids by helping them earn privileges and rewards. This is kind of like the flip side of giving penalties when kids misbehave. It goes like this: instead of grounding your teen for getting home late, you extend her curfew 15 minutes if she gets home on time for two weekends. Or if you son eats what is served for supper during the week, he gets to choose what’s for supper on Friday night.

Your child needs to help decide what the privilege will be. And it shouldn’t be something you can’t afford or takes too much time. Obviously it needs to be something your child wants or values and must be something he can earn soon.

Psssst I know you listened to the Corporal Punishment podcast because it tells me how many times it was reviewed.

It’s ok, I know this is a hard topic to discuss out loud. I sometimes feel the most comfortable when I can look up information on my own and think about it first. Here’s the catch – information has to be credible AND reliable information. And here at extension we also demand that it be research based.

So how about we start there – I’m going to share some solid research based resources around the topic of corporal punishment for you to review and ponder over -and then we can talk a bit more. Feel free to ask us not to post your question individually and we will be happy to post it as a ‘subscriber submitted question’.